


I Know

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 11:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11147916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: "Look at how far you've come."





	I Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kouaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kouaka/gifts), [CkyKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CkyKing/gifts).



> set in CkyKing's "heart eater au" where Noctis is captured by Niflheim and made into a human weapon, forced to kill his countrymen. this fic is set during his rehabilitation back into Insomnian life.

“Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

It was hard not to smile at the bemused blue glance. Especially when he remembered the days where he had wondered if there even were eyes masked beneath the blindfold. He remembered – in deep, bitter strokes – just how much he’d loathed and feared the bloodless wraith that darkened the Citadel’s door-step. He remembered wanting to take vengeance on _it_. He remembered when the creature had no name. When it was just the reaper that had stolen away so many of Nyx’s comrades. Took their blood to grease the cogs of Niflheim’s war machines.

He remembered the first time he’d ever seen the Ghost’s eyes. He remembered how pale they were. How sightless. He remembered the revulsion – _did it even know the faces of the people it killed?_ And he remembered the _pity_. He remembered the first time his heart had clenched with something a shade different from hatred. He remembered staring from a distance, watching Talcott tenderly guide the Ghost around the Citadel. Remembered the first time he saw those eyes, always staring down at nothing, finally shift towards the sound of the child’s voice.

He remembered fighting with Pelna. For the first time in… gods, he couldn’t remember if he’d ever fought with Pelna. He didn’t think he’d ever heard the man scream at him. Really tear into him. As vicious as a sabertusk, teeth flashing white as a dagger’s shine against his dark skin. He’d never made Pelna mad. Nobody made Pelna mad. But he’d been furious. And he’d had every right to be. He remembered him pounding a name into his skull.

“ _Noctis!_ _His_ name is _Noctis!_ ”

Nyx remembered the first time he called him that. He remembered watching him, after days tasked with shadowing him and hating every step he had to take in his wake. He remembered staring again. This time as they stopped in a darkened corner of the gardens, far from the summer blooms bursting on display. He remembered his confusion as Noctis stared at the little weed, tangled in the ivy netting along the shade of the wall. He remembered that he couldn’t look away as the Ghost, who had so many of his friends’ blood on his hands, reached those same hands to tremble over the tiny white blossom. He remembered the shaking breaths, the shine to still-healing eyes, and the ultimate defeat of him dropping his hands back around his chest and hurrying away.

He remembered a time where he could never do this. Where something as simple and as innocent as his request would have been _too much_. Asking him to close his eyes would have made his body seize up. His stare go blank. The months of careful de-conditioning snapping like scissors to a tightrope. Asking him to go blind again, put his hands out for the cold, cruel clasp of Imperial steel, would have ruined him all over again.

But Noctis only blinked at him. The dark lines of his brow inked together, scarred lips parting on the cusp of a question. Small, white punctures outlined the fair skin. Phantom wounds of horrible black wiring that kept his voice imprisoned for years. It was still hard for him to speak. The first time he’d tried had been like steel scraping against stone. The sound of his own voice had hurt him. Nyx remembered the hard evenings when it hurt the worst. When Noctis shivered in a corner, trying to make himself as small and harmless as he could because there was nothing about his own body that he could trust not to hurt someone.

“Come on,” Nyx coaxed. “It’s safe. I promise.”

“I know.”

Nyx looked at him. Was always looking at him. Was always comparing the softening edges to the sharp lines, the light blue to the milky white, the silver scars to the bleeding red wounds. The voice to the silence. The smile to the despondent, tear-stained frown.

_I know._

It was such a small phrase. Something people said to each other every day. But it meant something so much bigger for Noctis. It had taken so damn long to make him feel safe. To help him find his agency again. To teach him how to be a _person_ again. To prove that he could be loved in spite of all the terrible, bloody things that the Empire had subjected him to and forced him to subject onto his Lucian comrades.

 _I know_.

That he was worth the people around him that had wanted to see him heal. That it was possible to deserve happiness after the things he’d done. The people he’d killed. After tasting the blood of his own blood and still holding its beat in his chest.

He knew that he was home. That he didn’t have to fight for a master. That he didn’t have to follow the psychological coding in his brain to commit the horrors that kept him from falling asleep.

He knew that he was safe.

With Nyx.

Noctis smiled at him. A miniscule quirk of lips still training themselves to make that shape again. Shy and unsure. Delicate and yet, so powerful. It took so much strength to make that smile. It took so much patience, so much fear, so many tears and screams and set-backs to craft that little slip of a smile.

And that innocent submission of eyes falling shut and arms outstretching towards him. Nyx smiled, pride blooming warm and molten in his chest. He was proud of them both. Proud to have fallen in love with the gentle, curious spirit, bound in the thick chains of the Empire. Proud to have let his own anger go. Proud to have learned forgiveness alongside Noctis. Proud that they’d both shed the ragged, black skins of pain and distrust to find each other in the quiet, day glow behind each other’s eyes.

Nyx carefully placed the bouquet in Noctis’s open palms, curling the prince’s fingers around the burlap he’d wrapped around the weeds. Noctis’s eyes twitched beneath the lids, head tilting to the side. Years of living without sight had enhanced the rest of his senses. He listened to the rustle of the fabric, felt its rough, woven texture in his hands. He inhaled to catch the scent of soil and green and the faintness of something sweeter. Something Nyx couldn’t smell unless he was snorting the little white flowers up his nose.

“It’s your anniversary,” Nyx said when Noctis opened his eyes on his own. “It’s been one whole year since you came back to Insomnia. Three hundred and sixty-five flowers for each day. Hopefully. I might have lost count somewhere in the first hundred.”

Noctis’s face went slack, jaw hung loose, and eyes wide as he stared at the little blooms. The same weed he’d been too afraid to touch lest he break it like everything else. The same trodden, tiny flower that Nyx had plucked from between the nettle and thorns to present to him. The first time he’d ever been given anything that he’d dared to desire for.

The flower was hardly bigger than his little finger. But there were _so many_ of them. A whole carpet of little white blooms like stars in his arms. And like the stars, so far from his reach. So impossible to attain. Like his freedom. Like his redemption. Like his love for anyone that hadn’t been afraid to reach a hand into his sharp, dark world to help him out of it.

“There’s a whole field of those way out at the edge of Leide. Maybe next year, when you’re ready to go beyond the Wall, I can take you out there to pick as many as you want.”

For a tremulous moment, Nyx was afraid that it was too much. Noctis had come a long way, but he was still healing. There were still many hardships he would have to face. Nyx feared that it was too overwhelming. That maybe the number put too much pressure on him. Made the weight of the feather-light weeds feel like iron balls dragging at his wrists.

But Noctis’s arms hugged carefully around the wildflowers. His mouth moved, open and shut, struggling to make a sound. But he couldn’t remember how to sound as grateful as he felt. He hadn’t re-learned the expression for the feeling that spread through him. Nyx watched confusion crease his features as tears glinted at the edges of his eyes. Noctis blinked up at him, entreating for him to understand what he didn’t know how to express.

And Nyx did. He smiled and slowly reached out to rub a hand along his arm. Translating movements. Comforting, concrete touches for him to acclimate to before drawing him closer. He was mindful of the flowers between them, craning his head down to brush his lips over the sensitive, scarred dots that they’d been practicing around.

“May I?” he asked. Always. They still hurt sometimes. Noctis had been hurt by far too many people for Nyx to make himself one of them.

Noctis twitched up a nod before taking an emboldened step forward and kissing Nyx himself. Nyx’s heart strained in his chest. Little bursts of initiative like this were still so rare. So hard for him, he knew. Sometimes they came at the wrong times. Sometimes he couldn’t control them and that scared Noctis about himself.

But this kiss was just right. Just enough. A tender touch of tortured lips that were begging to be released in words that no one else could understand but Nyx.

Nyx let him kiss for as long as he wasn’t afraid to. Waited for Noctis to catch his breath on a small, hiccupping sound. A noise that wasn’t sure if it was a laugh or a sob. When Noctis raised his face again, there were tears on his cheeks and a smile on his lips. And they brightened away all of the scars.

“Look at how far you’ve come,” Nyx murmured, dragging the backs of his knuckles along his tears and letting his hand travel down to brush his thumb along the edges of that smile. “Now, that. That right there? That’s worth celebrating.”


End file.
